Cold Mercury

Starbreeze's next game is Cold Mercury
Adopting freemium model but "will not leave the AAA segment"

Syndicate and Chronicle of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay dev Starbreeze is downsizing its studio and switching to freemium for its next project, Cold Mercury.

The Swedish studio is also looking for a deal to distribute P13, an in-development project involving Swedish movie director Josef Fares. The studio's downsizing follows the release of the EA published Syndicate reboot. Despite thinning its numbers Starbreeze's CEO, Mikael Nermark, told GamesIndustry that the studio isn't stepping away from triple-A game development.

"Starbreeze will not leave the AAA segment," said Nermark. "We are discussing with several leading game publisher on publisher financed games, but we will broaden our product portfolio of games in the new business models and segments that have arisen in the games industry. I am convinced that Starbreeze will be successful with the new games."

Last month Nermark said the studio was "forced to make staff cutbacks" after the final delivery of Syndicate.